Reds plans on ice over extra visa spot deal

Adelaide United are hoping the new A-League bosses will add an extra visa spot for next season to let new coach Gertjan Verbeek complete his team the way he wants.

A-League clubs are caught in limbo during the current transition as Football Federation Australia hand over ownership of the competition to the club owners.

A finalised deal was supposed to be signed off on August 1 but almost three weeks later, there has been no confirmation the deal has been completed.

Both sides agreed an outline pact on passing over control a couple of months ago, but the finer details on how it would work in practice and the split of existing contracts and staffing still needed to be finalised.

The clubs have already leaked details of their ambitious new plans for the A-League including an extra visa spot, reviewing the salary cap, a new community shield type-match to kickstart each season, transfer fees between clubs and prize money on offer for successful clubs.

But none of it will come into action until the final deal is signed with the FFA.

The extra visa spot is particularly contentious as it will potentially add more interest to the competition, but at the expense of a starting spot for local talent, blocking the career pathways for Australian players.

Players union Professional Footballers Australia have yet to be formally consulted about any changes to the visa rules, and are understood to want to keep the number at five, a position backed by more than three-quarters of A-League players in a recent survey.

Meanwhile Adelaide United admit they are awaiting a final decision before plotting their next move in the transfer market.

They currently have four visa players on their roster – although the signing of Norwegian striker Kristian Opseth is still in doubt while his former Turkish club Erzurumspor withhold his paperwork over claims they are owed a transfer fee.

Verbeek backheeled all questions on the Opseth situation to newly appointed Director of Football and former Reds star Bruce Djite, adding: "It's not my job."

Adelaide United's secretive owners are also insisting their A-League club signs a Chinese player from their sister club, Qingdao Red Lions, which shares the Reds' chairman Piet van der Pol as their President.

However coach Verbeek is still hopeful he can bring an extra foreigner before the season starts.

"We have four now and the fifth one will be a Chinese," Verbeek revealed. "And we have to wait for that because the Chinese competition is still going on.

"At this moment, they don't give us an extra visa player so we have to wait for that. We hope that the FFA will decide there will be an extra visa player."

He added: "If there's not going to be an extra visa player then we won't have the opportunity to get another foreign player.

"We want to have one or two players extra and we are searching for this. It is not easy because we need an Australian player."